ITS systems help satisfy SANEF’s customers

Date: 4/3/2010

Source: ‘Frank Bruno’, ETC Vol. 4, No 4, pg. 30-32

SANEF is a French company that runs several tolling schemes around Europe, but their base is the 1,743km of tolled motorway that they operate in France.  They collect data from a wide range of sources including inductive loops, radar, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and from their own toll tags.  Bruno Corthier, SANEF’s Head of Telematics, perceives Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) as vital for providing information for customers to improve customer satisfaction.

SANEF delivers information to users via a number of channels, their Variable Message Signs (VMS) VMS display travel time and congestion information, but are quite expensive, so SANEF have installed low cost, double-sided VMS. Drivers can check conditions on the motorway via an FM radio station (which also broadcasts in English) or before they leave via the internet.  The average time for incident information to be detected and reach these delivery channels is 2 minutes, which may help to explain why 89% of users surveyed were satisfied with the information provided.

Keywords: Traffic information